Day 580 – Economic BS, Four Failed Museums

Saturday, August 20, 2022

I was listening to an NPR piece where an economist was asked, “What is inflation?”

He went into the standard, “Too much money chasing too few goods” explanation.

My BS detector went off – big time.

Here’s the problem with standard economic explanations – they begin with a model and explain “in a perfect world – all things being equal.” But we don’t live in a prefect world and all things aren’t equal. In other words to quote Ayn Rand, “Check your assumptions, one of them is wrong.” In this case, a lot more than one assumption is wrong.

When you ask an economist about the economy they will tell you what their model says and they why the model isn’t working in this case. Whatever the case is, that is if you are lucky and they get to talk that long.

Let’s look at housing. Prices are up. People are homeless. Therefore there must be a shortage of houses and we need to build more. WRONG. There’s plenty of housing. Bill Clinton pointed this out after he left office. The problem is that entities are holding on to those houses and spaces and wanting more money than people can afford. Developers keep building expensive houses and apartments. Who wants to build cheap housing? Which is what we need.

Why can’t people afford the housing that is out there? Because big firms have bought up all he cheap housing and are charging exorbitant rates and or spiffing them up and charging more.

Also, people have not gotten a raise since Reagan was in office. They don’t have any money. So the argument that inflation in this case is “too much money chasing too few goods” is crap. The problem is hoarding and no money.

Okay. Moving on. Four failed museums. This has nothing to do with the economy but shows a problem in our society. The four museums are: The Getty in LA, The Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, and The Hirshhorn in New York.

Okay, let’s go to the most egregious first – The Getty. Two problems: one) who designs a museum to be a glass box in a place with lots of light and heat? It’s so bad that the staff has to wear sunglasses inside. I can’t imagine what the AC bill is. The second thing, and this really bugs me because Getty himself wrote about art and said only buy good stuff, why is most of the art they have second rate? Okay, second tier? There are no famous names in his collection, no iconic pieces. It’s all okay, but not great.

Let’s move on to the Pompidou in Paris, same problems as the Getty: glass box and in this case really bad art. It’s not second tier. It’s just crap. One of the problems I have with the last twenty or thirty years of modern art is the need to explain what it is. This manifests itself in one of two ways. Either the artist has to explain ad nauseam what they were doing or, and you see this in a lot of current folk art, they have to put a lot of words onto their pieces.

I think what kicked off my wanting to write about this was watching a news program where there was a painting on the wall. If I was asked to describe it I’d say it was thick finger paint applied with a squeegee. First blue in a vertical peanut like shape and then red in the center.

Okay, it’s a painting. It has color. It’s fine for taking away from the drab beige but that’s it.

Moving on – The Museum of Pop Art Seattle. It might be unfair to say they are a failed museum. They have some interesting stuff. It’s style is what I’d call it upgraded children’s museum. But the outside? OMG. I know it’s supposed to look all new age and modern, but to me it looks like many of the homeless tarp cities you see all around the Seattle, but cast in metal. Maybe I’m being a bit harsh here, because as I said they do have some interesting stuff. However, I can only look at so many back stage passes for Pearl Jam before I say, “Okay, I got it.”

This brings me to The Hirshhorn. It’s iconic! The second you see the building you know it’s the Hirshhorn. Okay. Great. Can you think of one piece of art in the place? Or one iconic show it has had? No. You know why? There ain’t that much art in the place. Why? It’s designed as a big circular ramp looking into a giant open area. That means you only have one wall to display stuff and most of the covered space in the center is useless. Not only that but buildings with circular ramps disorient people. People like to be able to look out a window and orient themselves to their surroundings. Circular ramps with no windows eliminate that sense of where you are in space and consciously or unconsciously you will feel uneasy. Who wants to wander down a ramp looking at a meager collection of art all the while feeling uneasy?

Tomorrow maybe I’ll take on Ron De Santis and the right’s attempt to “re-educate” our children.